SGS Notes: This week started with a BANG! as we watched precious metals begin their long-forecasted breakout. Gold started the week Sunday night at $1619.00 and closed tonight at $1671.90. Silver began the week at $28.19 and ended at $30.82. Our Gold/Silver ratio dropped from 57 to 1 to 54 to 1… a move in the right direction… but a long way to go before it gets back to its historical rate of 16/1. We've seen big names in the industry liquidating their paper investments and putting funds into gold and silver… Countries like China, Russia, India … all doing the same… More revelations on the financial scandal fronts… and QE3 threatening to upset the dollar… It never ceases to amaze me how many things are linked in to Silver and Gold. Lots of fodder for our newsletter… has been a real challenge to pick which articles to post… if you want to see the 'rejects' go to our Facebook page!

Why You Always Want Physical EverythingZeroHedge

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog

On the way from San Marino yesterday, I had to stop for some gas near Rimini, a beautiful beach town on Italy's Adriatic coast. As an aside, Italian gas prices are among the highest in Europe… and the world… at €1.77 per liter (almost USD $8.50 per gallon).

Naturally, the vast majority of this is due to taxes. From the € 1.77 per liter, only about € 0.48 can be attributed to the price of oil. Profit margin and distribution costs run about € 0.28. The rest of it (just over 1 euro) is tax. This amounts to an effective tax rate of over 130% on fuel.

Anyhow, when I pulled in to the gas station, I whipped out my American Express card and asked the attendant in broken Italian to turn on the pump. He acted like I had just punched him in the gut, wincing when he saw my credit card. "No… cash, only cash," he said.

I didn't have very much cash on me, so I drove to the next station where a similar experience awaited me.

This is a trend that is typical when economies are in decline- cash is king. Businesses often won't want to spend the extra 2.5% on credit card merchant fees… but more importantly, distrust of the banking system and a debilitatingly extractive tax system pushes people into cash transactions.

You can't really blame them. In Italy there's massive distrust of the local banking system. Most of the banks are insolvent, and the government has already started imposing capital controls by limiting withdrawals in some cases to 1,000 euros.

As a result, many bank customers are facing substantial difficulty in accessing their funds; it's easy to understand why they want to deal in physical cash- the counterparty risk is much lower.

Nobody gives these issues much thought… right up until they get shut out of their account. But these are the real consequences of counterparty risk: anytime your asset is simultaneously someone else's liability, you might have a big problem when tough times arise. This is when physical cash becomes a premium asset.

It's the same thing with gold and silver when you think about it. In the early days of the post-Lehman financial crisis, precious metals prices were tanking. At least, on paper.

Gold and silver contract prices may have been plummeting in futures exchanges around the world, but simultaneously, premiums for physical gold and silver coins were skyrocketing. The US mint was unable to keep up with demand for physical coins, and premiums hit double digits by December 2008.

It was an obvious example of the huge disparity between the paper price and the physical price. And in tough times, the paper price is irrelevant. Physical is all that matters.

Cash is in the same boat. When you look at the numbers, the amount of physical currency in circulation is dwarfed by the digital money supply.

In the EU, the M2 money supply is 8.77 trillion euros, of which only 861 billion is in physical cash… about 9.8%. In the US, the proportion is similar- $10.02 trillion M2 money supply, $1.1 trillion in physical cash. The rest is all digits in a database.

It's a prudent idea to heed this lesson from Italy, for as the banking malaise in southern Europe spreads, cash is likely going to be a premium asset in the rest of the world as well. And it certainly makes sense for individuals to have some holdings of cold, hard cash in addition to physical metal.

After all, if you're only generating 0.0000001% interest in your bank account anyhow, what difference does it really make to hold physical cash? You're not worse off for it, but you'll be a lot better prepared in case something goes wrong.

Silver Eagles are minted by the U.S. Mint and are Legal Tender (Numismatic) Coins.
While they look very similar to our Walking Liberty Rounds, they are different:

Different reverse art - Different Eagle design, text 'United States of America' etc.

Carry a date on the face

Have a face value of $1.00 US Currency (on reverse)

Size: 40.6 mm. Walking Liberty Rounds are 39 mm.
Thickness: Since they are still 1 troy oz. .999 fine silver, and are bigger around in circumference, they are slightly thinner than the Walking Liberty Rounds

* Offer dependent upon availability, should they become unexpectedly unavailable…

New At SGS !

SGS now has the ability to process credit cards directly outside of Pay Pal. Many have expressed a desire for this feature, so you'll be happy with our direct card processing capabilities. Your credit information is not stored on our servers; it is secured by Authorize.net servers. Visa, MasterCard and Discover cards are accepted.

SGS Notes: If you've been following the prices of precious metals the last couple of weeks, you know that we saw a drop down in the high $26 range… that has been eclipsed this past week by prices moving up over $28. This is just the beginning of what looks like a new move upward in silver and gold prices, according to experts we're reading. And although our focus is precious metals, there are a lot of factors in banking and finance that have a relationship with these monetary metals, which is why we report on economic and other finance news.

Precious Metals vs. CommoditiesJeff Nielson, BullionBulls, Canada

I had the opportunity to listen to an inteview with noted commodities-guru Jim Rogers, which is never a bad investment of one's time.Rogers is both very astute, and a straight-talker; two "commodities" which I'm sure that he would purchase if he could - since both are clearly in short supply in the 21st century.

The central topic on the mind of Rogers' interviewer was Ben Bernanke's farcical testimony before the U.S. Congress. That love-fest had all the interrogative value of spending the day watching Sesame Street. Rogers was also totally unimpressed:

…Mr. Bernanke is going to print more money…I wouldn't pay much attention to the man…He only knows one thing - and that's what he's going to do…

The interview then proceeded to Rogers' specialty: the world of commodities. He remains totally committed to commodities over the long term, rightfully pointing out that as the global economy continues to be drowned in mountains of the bankers' paper currencies, that these hard assets must soar in price - as all that paper collapses in value.

When asked to compare the different commodity sectors, Rogers was also unequivocal. He was most bullish with respect to "soft" commodities and industrial commodities, while less bullish on the monetary commodities: gold and silver (at the present time). It's here that I'm going to dare to differ with Rogers to a degree.

I wouldn't presume to contradict his long-term prognosis on the future of commodities, in a commodity-starved world. In fact I completely agree with him. However, it is over the short/medium term where I believe I detect a small inconsistency in his analysis of these markets.

The inconsistency lies in the fact that Rogers fervently believes (as do I) that we are on the verge of a Flight out of Paper. He ranked the various forms of these fraud-currencies, and said he expected the holders of this paper to soon begin an exodus out of the most-worthless of them - specifically noting the U.S. dollar.

He also observes that once this exodus starts that there will not be enough stable currency remaining in the world for all of the U.S.-dollar refugees (and other paper-holders) to find a home. This leads to the obvious question: where will all those other $trillions go?

Rogers' implicit answer is that this paper will flow into his favored soft and industrial commodities. However this ignores a large and obvious practical issue: the absolute need for functional currency. Once we ditch the last of our banker-paper in favor of holding our wealth in some instrument which actually has value, we cannot simply all load up on commodities.

People are not going to go to their local shopping mall lugging bushels of wheat, barrels of oil, or truckloads of lumber in order to do their daily shopping. However, they will be quite happy to conduct their commerce using silver and/or gold coins, since as a species we have collectively had thousands of years of practice in using this only form of "good money".

What we have here is the world's foremost expert on commodities warning us that we are about to experience a shortage in a "commodity" with which our modern economies cannot function: usable currency. Then there is silver and gold. These precious metals have a 5,000-year track-record of being the world's ultimate "safe havens", because they are the only perfect form of money we have ever been able to devise.

At the same time, thanks to (literally) a century-long propaganda campaign to cause people to forget the true status of these precious metals, gold and silver have never been so under-owned as assets in the history of our species. Even when times are good, people have typically held between 5% and 10% of their wealth in gold and silver, while in times of peril those ratios typically soar.

With entire nations going bankrupt, and with the highly-respected Jim Rogers predicting an exodus out of many paper currencies (such as the U.S. dollar); we have never experienced an era of such extreme economic crises in our entire lives. Yet instead of even holding the "normal" 5 - 10% component of wealth in precious metals, Western investors currently hold only about 1% of their wealth in these assets.

Consequently, with demand/ownership at a temporary and artificial trough just as we are (apparently) about to experience an explosion in demand for these metals; the current rock-bottom prices for gold and silver cannot last. Here Rogers also had some guidance to offer investors.

He noted what is regularly pointed out by myself and other precious metals commentators: in relative terms silver remains a superior value to gold. Rogers based this assessment merely on the fact that the current gold/silver price ratio is sitting at an absurd level of roughly 55:1, as compared to the 5,000-year historical average of 15:1.

We have the world's foremost expert on commodities predicting a shortage of the most important "commodity" for any modern economy: legitimate money, the foundation of all human commerce. We have the two most-reliable forms of money currently being the two most under-owned asset classes on the planet (implying a steep discount in current prices). And we have one of those commodities (silver) priced at a further, steep discount in relation to the other (gold).

This is called "a buying opportunity."

WEEKEND SALE on ½ oz Divisible Walking Liberty Rounds !!

This weekend only (Friday - Sunday midnight) we are offering our

½ oz Walking Liberty Traditional and Divisible rounds at $1.00 off.

Price shown on the Web Site is already discounted.

New At SGS !

SGS now has the ability to process credit cards directly outside of Pay Pal. Many have expressed a desire for this feature, so you'll be happy with our direct card processing capabilities. Your credit information is not stored on our servers; it is secured by Authorize.net servers. Visa, MasterCard and Discover cards are accepted.

SGS Notes: Lots of items of high interest in the ongoing LIBOR scandal...just the tip of the iceberg… see this week's major article on US Marshalls Expose Biggest Scandal in History for all the details…
Also, Bill Murphy of GATA in this week's video references connections between the JP Morgan/LIBOR scandal and silver… Keep your eyes open out there!

Silver Metal Now and a Golden Traveler's CheckDr. Jeffrey Lewis

One of the main advantages of buying silver versus more costly precious metals like gold and platinum is that silver's relative cheapness allows you to buy more metal for the money.
Furthermore, inflation is a reality that eats away at the value of all paper currencies, while boosting the value of hard currencies like silver.

Given the likelihood of ongoing paper currency devaluation and debasement, despite short term perceptual fluctuations in the basket of floating currencies, the U.S. Dollar you are holding today is more valuable in terms of its purchasing power today than it will be tomorrow or a year from now.

Putting Things Into Perspective

If you are skeptical about holding silver or need a way to determine what time frame you should be holding silver for, you can consider the following question:
Given the at least 95% loss of purchasing power in the U.S. Dollar seen since 1913, with the vast majority of that loss of value occurring over the last 40 years, what would you rather be holding one year from now: An ounce of silver or the amount of U.S. Dollars that can currently purchase an ounce of silver?

Now ask the same question over a three, five and ten year time horizon. If your answer is consistently silver, then you really should be stocking up now that its price has retraced substantially from its recently made long-term highs.

This type of analysis allows you to put things into perspective and tolerate the short-term noise as the silver market fluctuates with less anxiety.

Why Choose Silver Over Gold?

Silver is currently preferable to gold for a variety of reasons. One of the most compelling is the price to supply ratio. The current supply of investment grade silver is 1 billion ounces versus 5 billion ounces for gold, while the ratio of metal in the ground is below 20 to 1.
Furthermore, both metals are well below their inflation-adjusted highs, especially when you calculate inflation based on an older, simpler methodology. In fact, silver is even more attractive than gold from this perspective.

Another factor is that silver is actually a more strategic and necessary commodity than ever. Its growing use in electronics, health applications and solar power production assure strong industrial demand for years to come.

Traveling With Silver's Bulk in Emergencies

Some investors who like to hold precious metals as an emergency get-out-of-town card are concerned about silver's extra bulk compared to gold when traveling. Basically, a given dollar amount of silver is much heavier and bulkier than the equivalent dollar amount of gold - so silver is just not as portable as gold.

Nevertheless, silver is not really that bulky relative to its value since a bowling ball made of pure silver would be worth well over $20,000 at $30 per ounce. What else can the average person readily accumulate and store in their house with the equivalent size and value?

Still, if you really need to 'get out of dodge' in a hurry or on foot, it would admittedly be a lot easier to carry only 15 ounces of gold - until you can switch back to silver of course!

Fortunately, investment grade silver and gold share enough properties to make them easily convertible into each other in emergencies. Silver is also easier to spend in small quantities to pay for the necessities of life while traveling.

$1 off SALE ON BULLION ROUNDS !

Buffalo, Morgan, Walking Liberty, Divisible Prospector & Civil War Rounds on sale
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Preparing to mint the Divisible Tea Party Rounds soon.
Please let us know of your interest to purchase and what quantity.
These are a custom minting, and we want to be sure to get enough for everyone.

Buying silver and gold today will likely be better than buying Microsoft or Apple stock way back when they first came out, and this article addresses the fundamental reasons why.

People often ask, "What good is silver or gold if I can't spend it?"

But that's exactly why we all should buy it! Low monetary demand means silver and gold are still cheap and undervalued liquid assets that investors should crave.

And crave it, they do. But 99% of silver investors are duped into buying the wrong kind of "silver", the kind that is not silver at all.

"Investors" have "bought" up to 200 billion "dollars" worth of "silver" in "accounts", which would be 15-20 years of annual mine supply. Clearly, that silver was never bought by the "brokers" who "sold" that much "silver" in "accounts" to "investors".

Every word in quotes above needs clarification and/or translation. Each word is quoted to highlight the fact that while I'm trying to tell the story in the silver market, it's difficult to do, because there so much fraud all over the place that if I stopped to define each word as I went, it would be so distracting that I could hardly write a single sentence. Here's how those lines should read, if the discussion were a bit more truthful:

"Misinformed greedy gamblers" have "gambled on the paper currency value" of up to 200 billion "units of paper currency" worth of "paper promises of silver" in "computers", which if it were actually what it was supposed to be, would be 15-20 years of annual mine supply. Clearly, that silver was never bought by the "broker / casino operator / thieves" who "took money for" that much "paper promises of silver" in "computers" for "the gamblers".

Getting back to the point of why people should want real physical silver (outside of brokerage accounts) especially when you can't spend it.

The point is that without monetary demand, gold and silver are cheaper than they otherwise would be.

Also, as long as 15-20 years' worth of mine supply worth of investor demand is siphoned away from the real silver market into "computer" accounts, then silver prices will not go up as fast as they should.

Lower demand means a lower value. Investors know that they want to buy things that have a low value, knowing that the value will likely go up. But investors are still not understanding what silver is, since they continue to be satisfied with "paper silver", or perhaps "computer silver".

So, here's the fundamental reasons why gold and silver will continue to gain in value. Gold and silver are true money, even if they can't be used to buy groceries yet.

What makes gold and silver good at being money?

Many people are beginning to re-learn why gold and silver are the best money, and have been money for thousands of years. They seem to be able to recognize some of the self-evident and obvious truths that those metals have certain unique features making them essential and especially good at being money.

But these need to be listed, because sometimes people have funny ideas about money, because we live in a society that must convince us that paper is the best money.

There is a lot more here than I can remember all at once. I need a list I can refer back to and update, and you just can't find the truth about this stuff anywhere else. So you might want to keep this for future reference, too. None of this is "news", but it will be news to some, because they just don't teach this stuff anywhere.

I have a Harvard Textbook, "Principles of Economics", 4th ed., that defines the three functions of money, the medium of exchange, the unit of account, and the store of value.

It has a 5 star rating! So, it must be one of the best. But how can it be, when it is filled with so many lies?!

The book encourages the reader to "examine" the three functions of money on page 643, (and that's also the only page that mentions the gold standard!), but the book just defines the terms -- but they don't even explain what makes an item good at being one of the three functions of money; the medium of exchange, the unit of account, or the store of value. Furthermore, the textbook is full of lies, misinformation, and false innuendo about money.

It's propaganda of the State. Propaganda works best if you have to pay to learn it. Nobody would believe it if they strapped you to a chair, tied you down, and shouted at you, "believe our lies about the usefulness of paper money and the stupidity of gold, or else!" No, it only works when they make the kids have to pay to learn their propaganda, and then reward those who have the best memories for the lies, with high paying wall street jobs whereby they fleece the rest of the public.

The "Harvard" textbook actually suggests in two ways that only criminals have a large need for cash, because bank deposits leave a "paper trail", and because cash does not earn interest.

But paper is not the only form of "cash". There is also gold. Is all the gold owned by criminals, too? Nonsense. And why does gold have to earn 1% interest, when gold and silver have been going up in value by 15-30% per year for the last ten years? Interest on gold is nonsense.

Precious metals are a great store of value:

To be a store of value:

It should be long lasting, durable, it must not be perishable or subject to decay. Gold does not decay, not even in seawater. Silver may tarnish and react with sulfur, but the tarnish is very thin and acts as a protective patina that prevents further decay. This is why food items, expensive spices, or even fine silks or oriental rugs, are not generally suitable as money.

It should have a stable value. Gold and silver values do fluctuate, but their value has never gone to zero value, like paper money often does.

It should be difficult to counterfeit, and the genuine must be easily recognizable. Paper money is rather easily counterfeited, and good counterfeits are very hard to detect.

Precious metals are a great unit of account:

To be a unit of account:

It should be divisible into small units without destroying its value; precious metals can be coined from bars, or melted down into bars again, with a low percentage cost. Actually, gold gets more valuable when made into smaller tenth ounce coins, which carry a higher premium, or price percentage over spot. Furthermore, gold, when distributed to the people, creates monetary demand, and a higher value for the remaining gold in the world. Animal skins, or live animals, are not suitable as money, because they are not easily divisible, nor can they be put back together when taken apart. If an item can be divisible, it can be fungible, which is the next point.

It should be fungible: that is, one unit or piece must be equivalent to another, which is why diamonds, works of art, or real estate are not suitable as money. If an item is fungible, then it can be countable, which is the next point.

It must be a specific weight, or measure, or size to be verifiably countable. You must be able to weigh, measure, and count, your unit of account! And this is why paper dollars are not suitable as money any longer. What are you counting? What are you measuring? Dollars are nothing but promises to pay in more dollars.

Precious metals are a great medium of exchange:

To be a medium of exchange:

It should be cheaply and easily tradeable, with a low spread between the prices to buy and sell, in other words, a low transaction cost, and be able to be quickly and easily bought and sold anywhere in the world. Land is not transportable. Even US cash is not accepted everywhere in the world anymore.

It should have a high value to weight ratio, and thus be easily transportable, and cheap to store away. Precious metals have a high value to weight and size ratio. This is why oil, coal, or water are not suitable as money even though they are valuable. It's why real estate is not money, it's not portable at all. It's why copper is not money, nor is wheat, nor balloons. While even air is valuable and necessary to live more than 5 minutes, and while air can also fungible, air is neither rare nor valuable enough by any significantly measurable units to be useful -- unless perhaps you are a scuba diver under water.

$300 of gold is .15 of an oz., and can be easily hiding in any wallet.
$300 of silver is just under 10 oz., and such a bar easily fits into your back pocket.
$300 of copper is 33 pounds, which is a major strain to lift.
$300 of oil is 3 large barrels, and is too heavy to be lifted by a person's own strength.

It should be durable. Gold does not decay. Silver tarnishes a bit, but it's negligible. Coins are often mixed with 10% copper to improve hardness and durability, and coins are made with ridges around the rim to prevent coin shaving or debasement. Paper money, surprisingly, is actually expensive as money, because paper wears out quickly, and it costs money to have to re-print the paper.

These fundamental reasons why silver and gold are true money, help to answer the top ten excuses why our friends have not bought silver and gold, which are listed here:

TOO HIGH NOW. No, Gold and silver can never be valued "too high" against paper money. Paper money is by nature fraud, and always will be. It's interesting that people thought gold was "too high" at $1000/oz. back in Dec. 2009. Clearly, with gold at a stable $1600 just over two years later, we can see more clearly
that they were all wrong who called gold "too high" a few years ago.

HOW TO SELL? Gold and silver are easier to sell than US "dollars", which are not accepted in many nations these days.

CRAZY GOLD BUGS: No, we who understand gold are not crazy. People who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to Harvard to be taught lies might be crazy.

I'M CLUELESS ABOUT GOLD: Well, if you went to Harvard, I can see why. And I hope this article helped to change that for you and your friends.

SHUT UP: Well, this is written, not oral.

PRICE CHANGES: As you can see, it's paper money that is changing in value, far more than gold and silver, but silver and gold will continue to gain value during this time.

GOVERNMENT WILL FIX: As you can see, government cannot change a single fundamental nature or property or feature of silver and gold. Gold and silver expose the lies of excess paper money printing by governments.

SILENCE: Yes, I know, the nay sayers are once again speechless. Hey, gold also doesn't talk, but that does not mean gold and the nay sayers are useless. Gold, if you examine it, reveals its properties to you. Similarly, by examining the arguments, or silence, of the nay sayers, we can see we are on the right track.

I'M BROKE: Hey, gold is not for every man. It's really just for those who would be kings.

BAD BROKERS: Now you can see why the brokers, and their lackeys, the "financial advisors", talk people out of gold and silver. They would go bankrupt if people bought the real things, because their short positions are 15-20 years of mine supply. Furthermore, brokers don't earn commissions on gold that you hold in your own possession and keep in your own vault, and neither do we. We only earn our commission one time, when you buy it from us.

Getting back to the fundamentals.

Gold is easily transportable. This means that the brokers really have no excuse to not send it to you when you buy it. Assays are free. Shipping and insurance for the shipping costs are less than 1% of the value. Thus, the only reason to not send you your gold or silver when you buy it, is because the sellers are running a scam, or are bankrupt.

And there you have it. You now know more about the essential nature of gold than 99.9% of people in the world.

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Silver is Money

This is fascinating… how silver is mined… and why it SHOULD be much more valuable! After you watch this, you will understand why everyone has been saying that silver is grossly UNDER priced… and… Why this price manipulation is causing a depletion /extinction of this metal in the marketplace.

Why Silver & Not Gold

The Silver Suppression Scheme
Is Ending David Morgan

Note: If you are getting duplicates of the S&GS Newsletter, please eMail us and let us know.

In a fresh sign of bankster desperation, we recently learned that they have pushed lease rates for gold to the lowest, negative level in history - i.e. they are paying people more money to "borrow" their gold than at any other time. We know this is a sign of desperation, because back in the real world, buyers are paying premiums near record-highs to buy their (real) gold.
There are numerous implications regarding this latest bankster tactic to suppress the gold market, but before getting into those let's explore all of the reasons why bankers like "leasing gold" in the first place. The starting point is to note that it is with gold-leasing that we see the beginnings of the banksters' 100:1 leverage in the gold market.

A banker is holding a quantity of gold in his vault. He "lends" the gold to a trader, and suddenly you havetwo parties both pretending to be the "owners" of that gold. Naturally, the banksters also like the fact that this is a totally opaque, unregulated/unreported transaction. The banksters can secretly lend out their gold, and since the transactions are never reported, we lack the absolute proof that none of this "loaned gold" is ever repaid.

There is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence on which to base such a conclusion, however. In order to review this evidence, we first need to know what is being done with the bankers' leased gold. A detailed analysis by veteran precious metals commentator Frank Veneroso explains how and why "The ultimate borrowers in the gold lending operation are these shorts in the gold futures and forward market."

We immediately see a second reason the bankers love gold-leasing: all of the "leased" gold ends up being shorted onto the market. What this directly implies then is that in order for these gold leases to ever be repaid the short positions must be closed out so that the gold (supposedly) backing the trade can be repatriated to the bank. However, what we see in the gold market is a huge, permanent short position in the gold market - which has swelled enormously since Veneroso wrote the article above nearly a decade ago.
We now know that at least some of these gold leases have never been repaid, since the gold that was loaned out remains on the market. However, as a matter of simple arithmetic we can deduce that few if any of these leases are ever repaid. As I noted above, each gold lease creates "paper gold" (i.e. a "fractional reserve" gold market) and increases the bankers' leverage in the gold market.

The Divisible Tea Party Rounds will be available for purchase until Monday.
We will be minting a limited number of them next week.

If you would like to place your order, please go online to order before Monday.

Survival Podcast MSB Members Discount will apply. Find code after MSB Login on the Members Benefits page.

Take advantage of this offer while silver spot prices are low!

New Product: CIVIL WAR EAGLES

150 years ago, 11 US southern states declared succession from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. We refer to this as the American Civil War. This .999 fine silver medallion has been specifically designed to commemorate that event and those soldiers who died fighting for what they believed in.

SGS Notes: Our main article this week is one of several from the Cheviot Sound Money Conference that was held in the January. Clicking on the photo link will allow you to listen to one of the key speakers of the conference who gave this speech below. Don't miss the links in the right column of that page to other very informative other speeches...

Gold & Silver Are The Currencies of the Free

Dominic Frisby
Goldcore

The President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, called for a new post Bretton-Woods currency system involving gold, in November 2010. Zoellick said that gold was worthy of consideration as a reference point for modern currencies and as an indicator to help set foreign exchange rates.

At the end of January, the Cheviot Sound Money Conference held an excellent conference in London which examined the practical application of gold and silver as money within a modern context.

The context to these proposals is crucial as without an understanding of the modern financial and monetary system one cannot possibly comprehend the continuing importance of gold and silver.

We live in an era of surging trillion dollar deficits and surging national debts in the US and internationally.

The US recorded its biggest monthly deficit in history two days ago with a $223 billion deficit for February alone, the 29th straight month of deficits – a modern record. The US budget deficit in 2010 was over $1.45 trillion and is forecast to be of a similar magnitude in 2011. At the close of business on Feb. 28, the total federal debt stood at $14.195 trillion ($14,194,764,339,462.64).

We live in an era of of thousands of trillions of dollars, euros, pounds etc. of derivatives.

The enormous OTC sector of derivatives alone is worth nearly $600 trillion on paper, roughly 10 times world economic output.

We live in an era seeing the creation of and speculation with trillions of dollars (euro, pound etc.) of electronic currency.

According to the Bank for International Settlements, as of April 2010, average daily turnover in global foreign exchange markets was estimated at $3.98 trillion, a growth of approximately 20% over the $3.21 trillion daily volume as of April 2007 - soon after the financial crisis began. Some firms specialising in foreign exchange have put the average daily turnover in excess of US$4 trillion.

We are experiencing a scale of global currency debasement, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

We live in an era where thousands of millions of people live on less than a dollar or two a day in the "developing world". While millions of people in the "developed world" are now debt slaves - both individually and as citizens of increasingly bankrupt nation states.

Reformation or replacement of our debt-based fiat paper and electronic financial and monetary system is one of the most important debates of our times.

The modern monetary system of paper and electronic money is inherently unstable and unsustainable and there is a strong case for considering using gold and silver as money once again.

At the Cheviot conference, Money Week's Dominic Frisby gave an excellent talk in which he outlined why gold is the currency of the free.

Frisby eloquently outlined how the modern system of finance, banking and credit (or debt) impoverishes and enslaves. It has "made wars that should never have happened possible; its brought about a relentless needless commercial expansion and malinvestment that has raped the earth."

He points out how the world is cursed by monetary illiteracy and it is amazing how few people understand the modern monetary system, and how it is to blame for the huge inequalities in wealth we see in the world today.

"Money must be sound and true, at the moment it is neither and society is corrupted as a consequence."

There is then an excellent panel discussion and question and answer session on gold at the end which involved Max Keiser, James Turk, David Morgan, Ben Davies, Richard Cragg, Sandeep Jaitly. It is surprisingly entertaining and very informative:

The US dollar has been the strongest fiat currency in the world in the last 100 years and indeed it became the reserve currency of the world during the period (due to victories in the two World Wars and the accumulation of the largest gold reserves in the world).

Despite that the dollar has lost 97% of its value in 97 years. The massive loss of purchasing power of the preeminent currency of our age, the US dollar, clearly shows gold's importance as a currency, as money and as a store of value.

Individuals, families and societies can never be free as long as money is based on debt and compounded interest and as long as the money we use day to day is constantly depreciating and being debased.

SGS Notes: These days, events are happening almost daily in the precious metals market. The latest big news this week is the move by Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezuela, to Nationalize the Venezuela gold industry, and to repatriate the country's gold holdings around the world. See links in 'Other Articles' about this.

Gold, Silver And 'Leaky BucketsJeff Nielson, BullionBulls, Canada

To those of us who have "found" precious metals, their (financially) life-saving properties are blatantly apparent. Indeed, apart from explaining the 5,000 year heritage of gold and silver as premier financial assets in our civilization, most of the arguments in favor of gold and silver are straightforward, simple arithmetic.

Because of this reality, one of the great frustrations for all precious metals bulls are the thankless (and generally fruitless) efforts we make to try to enlighten friends/relatives/associates. The pattern of such attempts is maddeningly similar.

Some friend or loved one mentions how "inflation" is hurting them financially. So the gold/silver bull begins to explain what inflation really is, who is causing it, and how it is done. So far, so good. However, as soon as we move on to explain how we protect ourselves from this "inflation" (i.e. through accumulating gold and/or silver), a subtle metamorphosis inevitably takes place with our subject.

A bland/placid expression creeps over their face, and is frozen into their features. Through years of experience with this phenomenon, I know exactly what that expression translates to in terms of the person's thoughts: "I'm trapped with this dangerous lunatic. How can I escape?" At that point, any attempt at "conversion" becomes purely an exercise in futility.

After each such failure, I inevitably review the process which has taken place, and ask myself where I could have gone wrong. The reality, of course, is that the fault does not lie with ourselves, nor with the individual whom we have failed to convince. Rather, the "blame" belongs to the propaganda machine of the bankers, which for the past century has blared out one message above all others: paper currency = money = wealth.

It is the fact that this simple, but totally erroneous equation is embedded in the "programming" of most of us which prevents the precious metals message of financial salvation from penetrating the psyche of those so afflicted. Thus, the initial step in being able to re-program the minds of these propaganda victims is to de-program them first. It starts with repudiating the bankers' odious "equation" (above).

First of all, paper currency does not equal "money". This is actually an entire discussion in itself. I could abbreviate it by listing the four qualities which all "good money" must possess. However, without expanding on the reasoning behind those traits, such mere assertions will not sway the brainwashed mind. Readers can review my own previous discussion on this, or the many similar efforts of other commentators, however the conclusion is unequivocal: paper currency is not money.

Now let's examine the third element in this propaganda-chain: wealth. The more cumbersome way to refute this equality/equivalence would be to explain why paper currency does not equal wealth. However, the better way to do this would be to simply point out the basic difference in the properties of these three elements. Paper currency is tangible. Money is tangible. Wealth is intangible.

This can be easily demonstrated anecdotally. Many people (including myself) often go days at a time carrying out all of our commercial transactions without ever once using "money". Thanks to the credit card (which is simply an electronic cheque-book), we no longer need money to convey our wealth to a vendor to make a purchase. It can all be done electronically because of the intangible nature of our wealth.

In similar terms, if we get up in the morning to discover that interest rates have been raised or lowered, this immediately affects property values - and the wealth of each/every property owner. Our properties have not changed in any way. We have not done anything ourselves. However, our level of wealth has gone up (or down). In fact, countless exogenous events affect our precise level of wealth at any given moment. Clearly, if wealth was not intangible than its exact level at any moment in time would not be so fluid.

Our equity markets leap higher or plunge lower (affecting the wealth of any/every equities-holder) often based only on "sentiment" or "expectations" - purely intangible drivers themselves. Obviously anything which can be altered by mere attitudes is intangible. As with any "intangible" (in our material world), we often find it helpful to adopt a (tangible) metaphor to allow us to have a better conceptual grasp. In the case of wealth, the obvious metaphor is a liquid. Indeed, the very frequent use of the term "liquidity" as a synonym for wealth is proof of such suitability.

Once we have conceptualized wealth as a "liquid", then it becomes equally simple to conceptualize "money" and "paper currency" within the same metaphor. They are containers for this liquid. Now let us make our metaphor even more tangible and precise.

Instead of "money", let us divide this into two "containers": gold and silver - the best/most-preferred forms of money in the history of our species. And instead of "paper currency", let's call that container "U.S. dollar". Finally, let's simply refer to these containers as "buckets".

We now have a very specific metaphor, and a very clear choice for each of us. We each have our own quantity of liquid (wealth), and we can store/hold that liquid in the "gold" bucket, the "silver" bucket, or the "U.S. dollar" bucket. Now let's examine the quality of each bucket.

Why have gold and silver been the preferred forms of money for our species for 5,000 years? Because they perfectly preserve (i.e. contain) the wealth of the holder. Look back 2,000 years to ancient Rome, and a stylish Roman could adorn himself in the finest toga, sandals and accessories for the cost of 1 oz of gold. Flash ahead to today, and any gentleman could obtain a top-quality suit, shoes and accessories for the cost of 1 oz of gold. Clearly, the gold bucket does not leak.

Now let's look at the U.S. dollar bucket. In the less than 100 years since the creation of the odious Federal Reserve, the U.S. dollar has lost approximately 98% of its value. Obviously the U.S. dollar bucket does leak. Hold your liquid in the U.S. dollar bucket long enough and you will lose all of it.

A (literal) "Devil's Advocate" would argue that a bucket which takes nearly 100 years to lose all of its liquid is "good enough". The rebuttal to this is as frightening as it is simple.

In the 40 years since Nixon severed the last connection between the U.S. dollar and gold, the dollar has lost more than 75% of its value. In other words, the hole in the bucket has gotten much larger. Today, as the price of food soars, and the price of gas soars, and the price of gold soars, and the price of silver soars none of these items have changed in any way, rather it is the value of the U.S. dollar which is plummeting. The hole in the bucket is rapidly getting larger.

Throughout history, all paper currencies which have not been backed by gold or silver (i.e. "fiat currencies") have failed. The most common means of failure is through the destruction of these paper currencies via hyperinflation: the value of the currency plummeting to zero. We can describe "hyperinflation" in our metaphor very easily: it's when the entire bottom of the U.S. dollar bucket has disappeared. Liquid (i.e. wealth) pours out the bottom as fast as we can funnel it in.

Looking at the first two buckets provides us with a crystal-clear picture. We have the gold bucket which never leaks. Not in 100 years, not in thousands of years. We have the U.S. dollar bucket. Not only does this bucket "leak", guaranteeing the loss of all liquid/wealth over time, but the hole in the bottom is getting larger every day - and soon it won't be capable of holding any liquid at all.

Given this stark illustration with just two buckets, some might presume that my inclusion of a silver bucket in this metaphor is redundant. However (as we shall see), the silver bucket is actually quite distinct from the gold bucket.

Obviously the silver bucket is just as leak-proof as the gold bucket, but silver buckets cost much less. After decades of being impoverished by our own, elitist governments (primarily through storing our wealth in 'leaky buckets'), many people can no longer afford gold buckets - however virtually everyone can still afford silver buckets.

This makes silver the "People's Bucket", a leak-proof container to store our "liquid" (wealth) which everyone can afford. However it gets even better. In continuing with our metaphor, we must all understand that the bankers have their own "Magic Bucket". How magical? Every drop of liquid which leaks out of the U.S. dollar bucket ends up in the bankers' Magic Bucket. That's pretty "magical"!

It is because the bankers have their own Magic Bucket that they hate silver buckets with every fiber of their evil beings. For the last century, and especially the last 50 years the bankers have made a concerted effort to destroy all of the world's silver buckets. How? Through manipulating the price of silver to a ridiculous low (in real dollars, the price of silver hit a 600-year low in the 1990's), they simultaneously destroyed "supply" (by bankrupting more than 90% of the world's silver miners), while causing demand to explode. Global inventories and stockpiles have been obliterated.

The result of this is that in relative terms there has not been this little silver in the world (above ground) in thousands of years. This is true both in relation to the quantity of gold and on a per capita basis. This means that in relation to gold buckets, silver buckets are now very rare - some might even call them "magical" too.

Not only is silver a leak-proof bucket to carry our liquid (wealth) which is still affordable for the average person, but it has become extremely useful in countless industrial applications - meaning that "everyone" wants silver buckets. Because of this high scarcity and soaring demand, it is a matter of elementary supply/demand analysis that the price of silver must rise to many multiples of its current price.

To translate this back to our metaphor, when we put liquid in our silver bucket, not only does the silver bucket prevent any leaks, but it actually increases the amount of liquid in our bucket. The silver bucket is also a Magic Bucket - but not an "evil" Magic Bucket like the one owned by the bankers. The bankers' liquid increases through leeching all of the liquid out of the U.S. dollar buckets, while the silver Magic Bucket increases the liquid of the holder without stealing any liquid from anyone else.

Let us review (one last time) the three "buckets" we can choose from to store our liquid/wealth. We can choose the gold bucket, a leak-proof bucket guaranteed to hold every drop of our liquid over the long term. We can choose the U.S. dollar bucket: a leaky bucket, with a hole in the bottom that gets larger every day - and which is guaranteed to lose all the liquid contained over time.

Lastly there are the silver "Magic Buckets". These marvelous devices not only ensure against leaks, but actually cause the liquid contained to increase in volume. The only down-side to these Magic Buckets? There is a very limited supply.

It can be virtually impossible to explain to a brainwashed mind how/why U.S. dollars are just scraps of worthless paper - just as it was impossible to convince the Dutch 400 years ago that tulips were mere flowers. It can be equally difficult to explain the concept of "saving our money" (i.e. wealth) in the form of gold and/or silver - despite the fact that 100's of millions of Indian peasants understand it and have been doing it all their lives.

Conversely, even the most brainwashed mind should still be capable of understanding the difference in "utility" between a 'leaky bucket' guaranteed to fail in its sole purpose, and buckets which have demonstrated themselves to be leak-proof over thousands of years.

SGS Notes: This week the GATA Gold Rush 2011 Conference was held in London. GATA is the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committe (http://www.gatagoldrush.com/ ) ... and we've seen material in the past from Andrew Maguire, Bill Murphy, and Ted Butler and others who have been actively involved in fighting the precious metals' manipulation over the years. Speakers this week at the conference include such big names as James Turk, Eric Sprott, Hugo Salinas Price, John Embry, Jim Sinclair... you've read articles by these folks and others in the SGS Newsletter since we began it.

The issue of the possible re-monetization of gold and silver is a hot one as we watch fiat currencies around the globe crumble into ruin. It's been on our radar screen at SGS since we began in 2008. There are many credible experts that believe it is coming faster than a speeding freight train... Bix Weir, of Road To Roota, is one such person. He has long been associated with GATA. As the world wakes up to the fiat schemes of the central bankers, there will be a rush... supplies will be in limitation... prices will skyrocket...

Dorothy's Silver Shoes or The Re-monetization of Silver Currency of the United States of America

Why not re-monetize the silver dollar? Re-monetization could put the silver dollar and its subsidiary silver coinage into circulation in parallel with FRNs – “Federal Reserve Notes”.

There are several reasons that make this action possible, and only one that might be considered as an unimportant material obstacle.

In favor:

The silver dollar is the money that is still the Constitutional “coin of the realm”, defined by Act of Congress as 371.25 grains of pure silver. (The Troy ounce contains 480 grains.)

The silver dollar is familiar or at least known to almost all Americans.
A considerable quantity of these silver dollars is owned by Americans.

The silver dollar is a cherished symbol of a great past.

The monetized silver dollar would ignite a desire to save such as America has perhaps never seen before. The very first thing that must be done, to encourage people to save, is to give them something worth saving. As the US government gallops toward the abyss of bankruptcy by unlimited spending, the American people desperately require a refuge for their savings!

In this writer’s opinion, a large majority of the American people can see themselves as owners of silver money and, if a poll were taken, one can imagine that most Americans would express themselves in favor of silver money. Not so with gold, towards which the American people have little emotional attachment: gold is seen as the money of the élite. William Jennings Bryan exploited this fundamental attitude of the American people with his “Cross of Gold” speech. (Note: this should not be taken as disparaging gold; it is simply the statement of an opinion about the attitude of Americans regarding gold.)

Against:

The silver dollar bears a value stamped upon it: “One Dollar”.

***

The branch of government which the Constitution has designated as the agency “to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof” is the Treasury.

If the Treasury were to monetize the silver dollar coin by attributing to it a monetary value in terms of FRNs - “Federal Reserve Notes” - the public would very probably ignore the inscription of “One Dollar” upon the coin and accept it as legal tender money for the amount of the Treasury quote given to it. It would not be necessary to explain that twice, to anyone owning a silver dollar coin! In a short time, people would regard the term “One Dollar” as the name of a coin, rather than as a numeric indicator of legal tender value.

Determining the value of the silver dollar falls quite nicely into the Constitutional mandate to the Treasury: “To coin money [and] regulate the value thereof…”

How would the Treasury go about determining a quote to regulate the value of the silver dollar? Let bureaucrats and lawyers write books about how it should be done; here it is in a few words:

Suppose the price of silver bullion is $35 per ounce.

The silver dollar contains 77.34166% of a Troy ounce.

$35 X .7734166 = $27.07, the value of the silver in the silver dollar.

The Treasury will quote the silver dollar’s value in FRNs, with a margin of 15%, and round the figure to the next highest multiple of four:

$27.07 X 1.15 = $31.13, rounded up to $32.

The silver dollar as a legal tender coin worth $32 FRNs. The American public would eagerly purchase these silver dollars, worth $32 FRN dollars, and which could be used for all transactions without any haggling. The silver dollar worth $32 FRNs could even be deposited for that value in banks, if anyone had a mind to do such a thing.

If the price of silver rose to $37.61, the margin of profit of the Treasury, or seigniorage as it is formally known, would be reduced to 10%; at that point, a new and higher quote would be issued, to restore the 15% profit of the Treasury:

$37.61 X .7734166 = $29.09 value of silver in the silver dollar X 1.15 = $33.45, rounded up to $36 FRNs - 36 being the next highest multiple of four.

Why “the next highest multiple of four”? Because by doing so, the result would be the re-monetization of the entire silver currency system of the United States as it existed up until the Sixties of the last century.

In the last example, the silver half-dollars would automatically be worth $18 FRNs, the quarter-dollars would be worth $9 FRNs, and the dimes would be worth one-tenth of the silver dollar: $3.60 FRNs.

As pointed out in many articles at www.plata.com.mx, in the section in English, the last quote of the Treasury would remain firm and not subject to reduction, just as if the value in FRNs had been re-stamped upon the coin. The Treasury quote would simply take the place of a stamped quote, which cannot be reduced. The Treasury quote would only be raised, to follow the rising price of silver. In this way, the silver dollar would be a coin that would remain in use permanently.

This program would return the silver dollar and its subsidiary silver coinage of half-dollars, quarters and dimes to the American people in such a way as never to disappear again: all rises in the price of silver would be matched with rises in the quoted monetary value of the silver dollar and by derivation, of its subsidiary coinage: the silver half-dollar, the quarter and the dime.

This program would not cost the Federal Government – or the taxpayers that support it – one single cent! And yet, it would constitute the greatest gift to the American people that any US Congress could possibly invent, next only in importance to the return of the Gold Standard. The restoration of the silver currency of the United States to circulation, in parallel with the fiat FRN, can be considered the prelude to the revived Gold Standard.

By paying the Treasury a premium of 15% over the bullion price of silver, the American people would actually be subsidizing the Treasury’s work of monetization. This cost would be a one-time cost of obtaining real money of permanent value and utility, independent of the Fed and the banking system.

The re-monetization of the silver currency of the United States would create a new, vast market for physical silver and drive the price of silver very much higher. Those who might not be able to afford the purchase of monetized silver dollars could purchase half-dollars, quarters or dimes, which would provide the same security: they too, would rise with the rise in the price of silver. The rise in the price of silver would affect gold, which would also rise in price.

In order to facilitate larger transactions in silver, the Treasury could once again issue “Silver Certificates” attesting to the existence of silver held in its vaults.

With regard to the present faux-silver coinage in circulation, the American people are too intelligent to be deceived by it; this coinage may remain in circulation until the Treasury issues new coins for the purpose of making change in small transactions.

Though the restored silver currency may legally circulate, in practice it will be saved in its entirety and only be used in cases of emergency. Its “velocity of circulation” will be effectively close to zero.

******

Dorothy wore silver shoes, in L. Frank Baum’s classic book. Silver shoes on the yellow brick road! Dorothy symbolized then and still does today, the American people. Dorothy was unaware of the magic power of her silver shoes – and the American people are still equally unaware of the magic power of the re-monetized silver dollar: the power to recover America as the land of Hope and Opportunity!

What are the obstacles to regaining the silver dollar as money which can circulate in parallel with Federal Reserve Notes? The main obstacle will be the weapon of fear wielded by the entrenched interests of banking and the Federal Reserve, the intellectual centre of the banking cartel. These fiat money-mongers will rely on generating fear of the consequences of silver money so that they can maintain their huge fraud of fiat money FRNs; the Fed and the “Too Big to Fail” Banks are deathly afraid of the competition of silver. They know that the slightest crack in their monopoly of issuing fiat money will expose their scheme.

The Fed and the banking system will without doubt claim that “silver money is very costly”, but they will certainly not mention that the American people will fall over themselves to acquire it and even pay a premium of 15% to the Treasury, for the blessing of owning real money. Nor will the Fed and the banking system ever mention the gigantic costs that the depreciating FRNs have inflicted upon American savers; nor will they wish to recognize that the fiat FRN and the Fed are directly responsible for the present financial and economic destruction of the once great United States of America.

Another objection which will be put forward forcefully is that what the American economy requires is more spending on the part of the public. They will argue that more savings on the part of the American people spells doom for the economy: “More drink for the drunkard” is essential, according to the prevailing Keynesian thinking.

However, the humbug wizard has already been exposed and the Fed has lost its prestige forever. Toto has drawn the curtain! The State of Utah has already voiced its dissatisfaction with the present monetary system, by legislating in favor of gold and silver as legal tender money. If this project - monetizing the silver dollar by the Treasury’s giving it a numeric monetary value in FRNs, which immediately places it alongside the Federal Reserve Note as money – if this project comes to the notice of the several States of the Union, they together may force the issue.

The present policy is to “kick the can down the road” and postpone the final reckoning. But, the end of the road is already in sight! The condition is one of utter helplessness. The re-monetization of the silver dollar is the first step toward regaining health for the economy of America. Paper, fiat money will probably remain in use for some time, but the presence of the monetized silver dollar will force the Federal Reserve, the banking system and the US Government itself, to a more prudent financial course. It will be possible to regain financial health, because an alternative is available. Savings, the foundation of prosperity, will bloom as Americans opt for massive voluntary austerity by saving monetized silver dollars, half-dollars, quarters and dimes.

The banking system in the United States will be anxious to receive the massive savings in silver of the American people as deposits, but this will only be possible when the price of silver bullion has stabilized. Thus, the American people will have the upper hand; they will bend the banking system to their will by refusing to deposit their silver in the banks and thus force the banking system to reform itself to prudent monetary practice and desist from inflating by expanding credit out of nothing. After a stabilization of the banking system, the way would be open to a resumption of the Gold Standard.

Americans are today caught in a financial calamity with no parallel in history. They are being told this every day by every medium of communication. But they watch their crumbling economy in utter paralysis, because there is no alternative to which they may turn. The whole world is a mirror of their plight.

The restoration of the silver currency of the United States of America by the very simple procedure outlined here can provide the life-saving alternative. There is, at present, no other practical proposal for a viable action in the field of money. Perhaps there can be no other practical proposal? Perhaps a return to silver money is the only path out of the present crisis of civilization?

Let us hope that a political leader in the United States understands this message. The popular appeal of silver is universal; “silver shoes” will take that leader far – and the American people will follow him on that road!